Reading Schedule for This Week:
M
2: Stoker, Dracula, Chs. 14-20 (pp.189-263)
W
4: Stoker, Dracula, Chs. 20-23 (pp.263-311)
F
6: Canceled for Scissortail Creative Writing Festival
M
9: Stoker, Dracula, Chs.24-27 (pp.311-369)
NOTE:
This week, as we race to the conclusion of the book (though we'll
technically finish on Monday, the 9th) I want to consider several
theoretical perspectives we've already discussed in class. Answer
ONE of the following as usual for Friday, even though we don't have
class that day. Please see the post on the Scissortail Creative
Writing Festival (above) for an extra credit opportunity.
1.
PSYCHOANALYSIS: Examine the role of 'taboo' in the book particularly
in regard to women's sexuality, rites of death, and the conception of
madness. Where do we see characters forced to confront cultural
taboos in order to face Dracula and/or see the "truth"?
You might consider Dr. Seward's account of seeing Vampire Lucy for
the first time in the graveyard: "Lucy's eyes [were] unclean and
full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that
moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she
then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight"
(XIV, 219).
2.
MARXISM: Though this is a Gothic work of the "uncanny," it
is also a work written at the height of the British empire and is
full of mercantile artifacts and imagery (bills, receipts, lawyers,
etc.). How might we read some part of the work in a Marxist
light--as something that reflects the class struggle or exposes the
'monstrous' nature of the Bourgeoise? You might consider the passage
when the vampire hunters corner Dracula in Chapter XXIII: "Harker
evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri
knife, and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a
powerful one...the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a
wide gap whence a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold fell out"
(304).
3.
READER RESPONSE: Why does Dracula,
despite all its characters and shifting narration, ultimately give
the story to three main narrators: Harker, Mina, and Dr. Seward? Why
not Van Helsing? Quincy? Or even Dracula himself? How do these
three narrators affect what we read and how the story is told? And
more importantly, why this trio--a scientist, a solicitor, and his
'new woman' wife? You might consider what one or more of these
narrators reveals to us in their narration, such as this passage from
Mina in Chapter XVIII: "Manlike, they have told me to go to bed
and sleep; as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in
danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Johnathan have
added anxiety about me when he returns" (247)/
1. One of the early examples of taboo we see in Dracula is Harker's initial resistance to acknowledging what Count Dracula is. From the beginning, he takes note of Dracula's pale, pointy ears, hairy hands and his, “sharp, canine teeth,” which “showed out strangely” (46). Before too long, Harker even realizes he's being held prisoner, and although he seems to be a little upset about it, he's still not very worried about the Count being anything he shouldn't be. He says, “How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash?” (52) Gee...I wonder. Despite being faced with truths about his situation, Harker hangs on the the hope that there is a plausible cause for the things he's experiencing.
ReplyDeleteIt's only when, one night, as he's calmly contemplating his prisoner-y status that he notices that something is really not as it should be with Dracula. He says that his “feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall . . . face down.” (58) Even still, Harker hangs on to his taboos and his hope, thinking it was a trick of the moonlight or shadows.
Despite being faced time and time again with proofs that built upon each other, Harker's innate Britishness (or western-worldness, I guess), kept him from accepting an idea that one from another culture would embrace at the first glimpse of a pointy tooth. It's understandable that he doesn't leap to any conclusions just because the Count is a creepy guy who doesn't eat much, with so much evidence in front of him, it's plain that Harker's culture delayed his understanding.
Great response...and wouldn't most of us cling to our beliefs of the way the world is supposed to work rather than face the possibility of an ancient vampire walking about in London? Even at the end of the work, the hunters are trying to hide in their taboos and are incredulous that such things could be...yet Mina, alone, seems able to see things as they are, and even begs them to stake her if it comes to that. Dr. Seward hides behind the world "euthanasia" (a scientific word) rather than face the 'pagan' truth!
Delete2. Like how we discussed in class, Dracula could very much represent the higher class. This isn’t only evident because of the fact that he is of high status himself (being a boyar or basically what was once the Prince of Wallachia, since Bram Stoker obviously took inspiration from such) it was also since he was able to buy much of England, such as Carfax Abbey and other places throughout the city as well as outside of it by using a different name (Count de Ville). This shows that Dracula has money and by buying up all these estates he obviously has power along with it and is sucking England (in a metaphorical sense despite being a vampire who actually need blood to survive) dry. Many modern adaptations of Dracula seem to forget this and that in a sense Dracula is just as motivated by greed as he is lust for either Lucy or Mina. He wishes to own everything that had been previously denied to him over the centuries or perhaps Harker just happened to be the convenient thing he needed in order to carry out this plan. For all we know Dracula could have very well had had this plan in mind for quite some time floating around and just needed the right time or person to enact it and carry it out fully. Harker could have just been the doorway he needed and with more money and prestige he was able to open up nearly anything to himself and take it without having worry upon his conscious (can be argued if he even has one or not!). Dracula can literally be taken as the bourgeois class personified, as a vampire, while Harker, Mina, and Seward in particular (notice at how they are the main characters so to speak or how it ultimately becomes their story, Mina even more so than others which opens up a whole new thing on allowing women the ability to speak!) can be taken as the lower classes now being given a voice and thus showing how the lower classes were struggling against the higher or upper class folk during this era of upheaval since the Victorian Era would soon come to an end and open up into the Edwardian Era shortly after. Pretty much if you want to see this book as being more than supernatural and of good versus evil, you could basically say that this book is all about Marxism and is veiling it behind a story that has otherworldly elements, hiding it and yet openly mocking the higher classes while elevating those who were once of lower status into something greater than they could be in actual life at this time. Well that is how I see it in a way; with Dracula obviously being a metaphor for the upper classes (though in reality I like the supernatural element better! Makes it more awesome! ^_^) and the other characters like Mina, Harker, and Seward (he’s not really super low in class but he’s not high up either…his work in dealing with madmen sees to that!) are the lower classes who are struggling against this great evil, the higher ups and nobles.
ReplyDelete-Kate Hatton-
Remember, it can be supernatural and Marxist simultaneously--we don't have to choose one approach over another! But you make a great case for the Count as the old warlord become the new bourgeoise. If he had his way, he would soon own factories and enslave the entire population much the way the bourgeoise does in Marx's mind. Indeed, in an interesting side-note, Marx uses the metaphor of the vampire in the opening pages of The Communist Manifesto...Gothic literature was very much on his mind, and I think he would see Dracula as a confirmation of this metaphor. Dracula couldn't take over London without money, and not surprisingly, the only way to really defeat Dracula is with MORE money. Without Arthur's funds, they couldn't bribe people, find keys, and trace Dracula's progress through the city. It's a very economic suspense thriller!
Delete3. READER RESPONSE: Why does Dracula, despite all its characters and shifting narration, ultimately give the story to three main narrators: Harker, Mina, and Dr. Seward? Why not Van Helsing? Quincy? Or even Dracula himself? How do these three narrators affect what we read and how the story is told? And more importantly, why this trio--a scientist, a solicitor, and his 'new woman' wife? You might consider what one or more of these narrators reveals to us in their narration, such as this passage from Mina in Chapter XVIII: "Manlike, they have told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Johnathan have added anxiety about me when he returns" (247)/
ReplyDeleteThis kind of narration tells me two things. The first thing is that Stoker is trying to appeal to multiple audiences. He wants doctors to read his book, he wants the everyman to read, and he wants the ‘new woman’ to read it. He speaks the language of that demographic through that character, and at the time, those were the larger demographic groups that needed prodding. The higher class people (for the most part women) already read the Gothic literature.
On the other hand, the reason may not get other characters’ points of view could be an issue of top much information or to display the great difference between the modern Englishman and these foreigners. Dracula is other. He is different and that may not be understood by a reader if we get ‘Chapter XII: Dear diary, Dracula again..’ The same really goes for Van Helsing and Quincy. Though they are more human, Van Helsing knows what is going on. This could be information over-load. And he’s GERMAN! Another not English guy. Quincy is an American and so there’s already a move of dissent. Though he’s a the fabled cowboy, he is also sort of an other.
Another view could be an avoidance of moral declaratives. Quincy is the epitome of good and moral uprightness in this book, while Van Helsing is good but chaotic, and Dracula is straight-up evil. The English characters are morally straightforward. You can predict them with a high-degree of accuracy. Could morality be a big clue into this mystery?
Interesting response...I would like you to elaborate more on the final paragraph. What does morality say about the narration and/or who tells the story? It's true that the "others" can't be allowed to narrate--that would distrupt Stoker's intention. And yet the ones who do narrate are hardly morally stable: Mina is an other, in a sense, as a New Woman, though she is also framed as a "good woman" by the Hunters; Seward is morally ambiguous with his interest in criminal psychology and his willingness to experiment on Renfield. Harker is the blandest of the trio, and perhaps serves as a coutnerpoint to both. Though hardly reliable--he has many taboos that prohibit him from seeing the 'truth'--he can offer a more prosaic account of what is colored by the more imaginative perspectives of Mina and Seward.
DeleteIf Dracula had focused solely on Van Helsing, or even on just Dracula himself, then the novel would have lost some of its bite, and the mysteriousness of those two characters would have been diminished. It's never fun to know too much about a certain character – if the picture is drawn too clearly there is no room for imagination. It is fun to think about how Dracula came to be, or why Van Helsing has so much experience with vampires. The reader can connect much more to a 'Harker,' or a 'Mina,' as they are more normal and relatable. As was talked about in class, everyone has some amount of darkness within them, and anyone is capable of being a monster in the right circumstances, so in that sense it is easy to relate to Dracula, but that being said the average person is not a killer – they're a writer, or a doctor. Everything important that needs to be explained in regards to Dracula or Van Helsing is done so through the other characters. They're the human element, while Dracula and Van Helsing represent the super human element.
ReplyDelete^ Some of its bite. Lol.
DeleteGood response--for Stoker's purposes, we can't "know" Dracula. He has to remain a force, a metaphor of evil and corruption...though a modern author would probably be most compelled to tell his story (or Van Helsing's). All of the narrators are 'normal' Englishmen/women who reveal how abnormal we all are: Mina is the "man/woman," Seward is something of a sociopath, and Harker is in danger of 'falling' the first time a vampire strokes his neck. So we need these human perspectives to make his point...the supernhumans are fascinating but not as relatable (unless we made them so, which Stoker wasn't interested in doing).
DeleteA Freudian analysis of Dracula can reveal much about the Count and some of the other characters in the novel. Dracula's desire to suck the blood of his victims can be interpreted as a type of oral fixation among other things. The intermingling of his blood with the blood of his victims could be compared to the exchange of bodily fluids in sexual intercourse. Dracula doesn't merely want to feast on the blood of his victims or turn his victims into vampires, but he also desires to infect, defile, and contaminate the victims. The Count is a horror that springs directly from the unconscious mind in much the same way that sexual desires originate from the unconscious workings of the human mind.
ReplyDeleteThe character of Dracula is a direct attack on Victorian sensibilities. Viewed as the transmitter of disease his preying on of women takes on an infectious quality the infection being that he sexually liberates women. During Victorian times the discussion of female sexual desire was a taboo subject.
After Lucy is transformed into a vampire one gets the sense that she's not only un-dead but is now a perverse sexual creature. We see evidence of this in the scene where she's staked through the heart (the stake might be interpreted as a phallic symbol). Once Lucy dies for the second time she's restored to her former innocent self.
The oral fixation idea is interesting...some critics have picked up on the obsession with eating in this novel. They're always eating! They even stop their plans for breakfast at times. This is a world that lives on money and feeding, and Dracula is an uncanny embodiment of that...he shows them what they deny about themselves, that they, too, 'feed' on the world and, in a Marxist sense, the lower classes. Lucy, too, shows them a world they deny--female sensuality. The hunters claim that all those who would commit crimes, like Dracula, have "child-brains," or brains that are not as evolved as your average, well-meaning citizen. This is a comfortable view to take, since it explains criminals as a 'race,' not a possibility that we all face. The idea that Dracula, too, might have once been civilized and fell is terrifying...as it is when Lucy falls herself.
Delete